On December 14, 2005, the day when the co-chairmen of the Minsk group visited Azerbaijan, the President of that country Ilham Aliev expressed certain remarkable thoughts in his speech at the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. The event was dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Academy. During his speech he petitioned the intelligentsia and scientists of Azerbaijan to preach as much as possible and find ways to prove to the international community that the Armenians don’t have any legal grounds to be inhabited in Artsakh because the land doesn’t belong to them. He promised financial support to those scientists, who can prove that Armenians are just guests in Karabagh; they came to Karabagh in the 70s of the 19th century and don’t have any historical rights to the region. The advisor to the RA Minister of Defense Hayk Kotanjyan has expressed his opinion about this speech. He mentioned that Aliev’s speech, in fact, was an order directed to the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan and other corresponding bodies. “Thus, Aliev considered the anti-Armenian hysteria among fundamental sciences”, mentioned Mr. Kotanjyan. To the question, “how Aliev’s speech corresponds to the efforts of the OSCE Minsk group to create an environment of trust between the parties of Karabagh conflict?”, the Advisor answered, “The speech of the President of Azerbaijan contradicts not only the requests of the co-chairmen of the Minsk group to avoid threats but also the academic standards adopted in the whole world. It also contradicts the spirit of hopeful announcements, which relate to the peaceful solution of the conflict”.
